Written by Wanbi Hou, Financial Chain _ Old Poison Master
The Federal Reserve's printing machine roars like thunder, but Bitcoin mining sites are extinguishing around the globe.
When the mountain of gold collapses, everything turns to smoke, and the world awakens to the realization that this so-called 'mountain of gold' is just an illusion concocted by Wall Street and Silicon Valley. As the Federal Reserve's interest rates rise to 4.5%, the bubble of virtual revelry is pierced, leaving only a global landscape littered with debts and countless ordinary people, including you and me, consumed by digital illusions.
The world says mountains of gold and silver exist, yet they do not know that there is a kind of mountain that can rise out of thin air and vanish into thin air. The so-called '440,000 BTC mountains' are like a mirage at the peak of global mining machine noise, having drawn so many ordinary people like moths to a flame, throwing their lives and fortunes into it. When that illusory light suddenly dims and the smoke clears, the world looks on, what do they grasp in their hands but a grain of gold dust? Only emptiness remains, and beneath that emptiness, the increasingly heavy and hideous old debts and new wounds!
In the end, the debt of Americans is a noose hanging over the necks of people worldwide, and it must be repaid.
However, as the heat of July has not yet arrived, the clouds of $6.5 trillion in old debt have already descended heavily, like a noose strangling people to the point of gasping for air. When carefully calculated, this number is not false; the total national debt has already burst through the threshold of 36 trillion like a rolling snowball! Every day upon waking, the interest alone burns through $2 billion in silver—enough for a city’s living expenses for a year! In the past, Uncle Sam excelled at 'shifting walls to cover walls', replacing old debts with new ones, cleverly playing a good sleight of hand, managing to keep the world in peace for decades and fooling the masses. Yet, this time is different from the last! Now this new debt requires paying a five percent interest! Five percent! Consider that the ten-year treasury bond interest rate is still in the gentle realm of 1.25%, today it has galloped up like a wild horse to 4.5%! This blatant bone-sucking is not treating all people in the world as blind? It is clear that they have dug a deep pit yet insist on laying a layer of gold foil on the edge of the pit, luring the greedy into jumping in one after another. Is this calculation not more despicable than that of street gamblers? Gamblers only owe a jar of tomorrow's soup; what they gamble is the very foundation of the nation's fortune!
Debts for wine are still debts, and IOUs must eventually be repaid. If new debts go unnoticed, do old debts not become an unsolvable deadlock? Just looking at this June’s maturing national debt, it seems like a giant beast opening its mouth, swallowing 30% of the annual maturity amount! The abacus beads of Wall Street bankers clack loudly, but the deficits on the ledger grow like poisonous weeds after spring rains, growing uncontrollably. Last year's deficit of $1.7 trillion has not yet scabbed over, and this year's new wounds have added to it. The debt-to-GDP ratio has already broken through 120%, surpassing the apocalyptic scenes of the Roman Empire before its fall by a margin! Alas, the hearts of the people are generally like this: when borrowing, they are eloquent with all kinds of promises; when repaying, they become slippery as eels, with all sorts of excuses. The so-called 'paper tiger' of yesteryear, viewed today, is even less than a paper tiger; it is clearly a 'paper money tiger'—even the paper money used to fool the gods and spirits is likely to be printed out soon!
As the foundation of the dollar decays, the towering structure is moments away from collapse. Who among the overseas creditors is not a cunning fox? Right now, they clutch their hot ledgers, smirking: Japan holds $1.13 trillion in debt, China $780 billion, and even small nations like Belgium have staked $300 billion! Former vassals, seeing the great tree about to topple, how could they not scatter like birds and beasts? Even allies on the surface now hold their ledgers, coldly observing this grand drama, calculating their own interests. Last month, the European Central Bank quietly sold off billions in U.S. debt, while Saudi princes' rolling oil dollars swiftly turned towards gleaming hard currency, clearly showing that even this 'paper money' trick is no longer believed. As for the much-hyped 'tariff war' and the blusterous 'trade blades', they are merely the delirious ramblings of a dying patient, adding to the mockery!
In this vast world, how can those who deceive and steal fame remain on the altar for long? On the day debts pile up high, that seemingly unbreakable credit gold body will collapse with a thunderous crash. When the mountains are exhausted and rivers run dry, we will witness how the once-mighty hegemony cracks inch by inch, turning to dust and scattering in the winds of the wilds. No matter how tirelessly the Federal Reserve's printing machines operate, spewing green paper like waterfalls, how can they outpace the cold calculating scales in the hearts of the people?
The world says capital is like a fierce tiger, choosing whom to devour. Yet, they do not know that this fierce tiger will eventually starve or die! 34 trillion in flesh and blood feeding cannot fill a bottomless greedy mouth.
That golden-haired magnate, the old poison master aptly named him 'Mr. Great Power'. With his left hand, he gestures solemnly to the heavens and moon, sketching grand plans; yet with his right hand, he tightly grips the noose of debt, wandering around the globe, occasionally igniting a firecracker, causing the rivers to churn and the seas to foam—a grand paper façade that shines beautifully! Now, the ink on this paper still carries a fresh scent, resembling the flashy facade of a golden phoenix painted on a theater stage. From afar, it dazzles with golden light, but up close, it is shocking—beneath the gold powder lie only worm-eaten holes, and rotten wood cannot support! Yet some people wave banners shouting 'cut interest rates', their voices hoarse, as if a heavenly rain is falling. They point to plummeting energy bills and slightly lower egg prices, while price tags in the streets seem like painted performers, bowing submissively to the masses. However, under the oil lamps of common folk, the clinking of copper coins grows lighter—what they get in return is increasingly insubstantial—the 'decrease' marked in red on the ledger is clearly written with the sweat and tears of the small people!
Looking again at Europe, the sweet syrup has been poured round after round, no less than seven times. The weary old horse symbolically licked its lips, but its hooves sank deeper into the mire, unable to move. The steward, derisively dubbed 'Mr. Too Late', clutches his ancestral rosewood abacus, seriously pouring silver ingots into a pouch. As the abacus beads clack loudly, what spills out are only worthless fragments of silver. If one asks what is the use of the taxes scraped together? The schools built, railways laid, and warships constructed by ancestors a century ago seem like golden bricks and jade tiles falling from the sky; yet today, people must pinch their noses to pull the last copper coin from their shriveled pockets! Deep in the treasury, the sounds of gnawing rodents are incessant, as if mocking: the holes only grow larger, and the little bit of brown rice and chaff in the grain bin has become an offering on the altar!
If cutting interest rates were truly a remedy for the world, able to fill the rumbling hungry stomachs, why wait until the chickens fly and eggs break, and the dead bodies pile up before reciting the true scriptures? It is merely a clumsy puppet show. Those thin strings tie a heavy gold ingot on one end and tightly fasten a ballot box on the other. The performers on stage are still singing loudly that 'inflation has been tamed', while the audience below has already pierced through the thick makeup to see the rotting, pus-filled wounds beneath. It is not just that 'Mr. Joe' is asleep; those with their eyes wide open who willingly pretend to be deaf and mute, pointing at deer and calling them horses, are the true 'star performers' in this grand end-of-the-world drama, the ones who cannot be awakened are the permanent sleepers!
Sitting alone in front of the computer typing words, I watch the numbers rise and fall like tides, sounding like the clanking chains of impermanence dragging lives. Some are willing to pawn their ancestral roofs, while others crazily seek to bet their wives and children, just to chase the intertwining curves of red and green. In their wild eyes, that is clearly the life and death ledger drawn by the judges before the throne of the King of Hell.
I got up and turned on the light, casting a huge shadow on the wall—the shadow sometimes resembled a greedy pi xiu, sometimes a frightened monkey. The numbers continue to soar madly, but the lamp oil will eventually run out. When the dawn breaks and the screen is filled with chaos, who knows where it will turn into the wailing of desolate homes? Those 440,000 Bitcoin mountains that vanished into thin air, along with the $36 trillion of stacked debt cliffs, will ultimately become a heavy sigh in the depths of history. What have we gained? What have we gained? We have gained nothing! We have gained nothing!! Last night’s paper drunkenness merely pays for this morning’s widespread wailing with a blood-soaked bill.
Written by Wanbi Hou, Financial Chain _ Old Poison Master